by Warhammer
That was the last conscious thought he had for a few moments as horror swept over him. Millions of fat buzzing bodies crept over him, their wings stroking his flesh softly and obscenely, the creatures battering against his eyes, and threatening to fill his mouth and his nostrils. He lashed out frantically, but it was like fighting with mist. He crushed hundreds, perhaps thousands as he rolled over but more and more of them came. He could imagine himself under a huge crawling mound of the creatures, covering every inch of his body. He felt them try to force their way through his lips, climbing into his ears. The smell intensified and the buzzing of the wings seemed to have a voice all of its own. He thought he heard the words Nurgle and Praise and Pestilence carried in that strange droning but could not tell if it was real or the product of his own terrified imagination.
Just when he thought things could not get any worse, he felt a massive rope of muscle encircle him. Suckers bit into his body. Something lifted him upwards as though he were weightless and he did not doubt that he was being carried towards the maw of the monstrous creature that was the lord of all these flies.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Teclis emerged through the archway and found himself looking down upon a scene of battle. Two humanoid figures were engulfed within a carpet of flies, amid a vile white mist that smelled worse than an orcish midden. One of the figures was quite plainly a dwarf. His outline was more visible through the flies that carpeted him, and he held in one hand an axe that could only be a dwarfish rune weapon, and one of great power at that. No flies covered it. Where they touched the blade they vanished and the runes blazed a little brighter.
This was the thing he had sensed. This was the thing he had deludedly thought might help him. It could only be the axe. There was another magical weapon present, one of cruder make and lesser power. Its wielder was gripped by the tentacle of the monster.
Teclis had studied all the grimoires of his ancestors who had lived in age when daemons had walked the earth. Moreover, he had personally as much experience of daemons as anyone not a follower of Chaos was likely to have, and he could not recognise the thing. It bore some resemblance to a beast of Nurgle, one of the lesser entities that followed the Lord of Disease, but grown almost as huge as a dragon, and mutated almost out of recognition. Moreover, it seemed to be spawning lesser beings at an appalling rate, and in his blinded state, Teclis realised that it was only a matter of time before one of them reached the dwarf. What would happen then would be interesting, for he guessed the maggots were infectors of some type, who would pass the taint of Chaos on through their venom, if they were not already doing so with their gore. Could even that appallingly powerful weapon protect the dwarf, if that happened, or would it use its power against him as it would another Chaos-tainted thing?
Tempted though he was to conduct the experiment, Teclis resisted. Two magical weapons, Teclis thought, borne by two heroes. Here were two allies who might prove invaluable in the quest to come, if they could be persuaded to see reason. Perhaps this was why they had been drawn to his attention. First of all, though, he had better deal with the daemon and its spawn.
Teclis drew on the powers stored within his staff, preferring to rely on it rather than the tainted but potent energies flowing through the Paths of the Old Ones. He chanted a spell of exorcism and banishment. The casting was sure and steady and bands of high magic danced from his outstretched hands, separating the weaves of power that bound the flies, reducing them at once to mindless insects, and he added a small incendiary component to the spell that caused the flies to combust. He shaped another spell to purify the foul air tainted by daemon effluvia, and then concentrated his efforts on the great beast itself, sending multiple lines of energy arcing and spinning towards its head. The magical fire passed through its body like so many red-hot wires through rancid lard. The creature screamed and its tittering stopped.
With his sight clear of the buzzing insects, the dwarf did not need any more encouragement to strike. He raced forward and the massive axe crashed through the slimy skin of the beast. The creature’s wails intensified as the glowing rune-encrusted blade bit home. The massive tentacles uncoiled as the creature writhed in agony. The man in its grip was sent flying across the corridor as if flung from a catapult.
Teclis summoned a small pseudo-sylph to catch him and cushion his fall. It was a tiny air creature formed from magical energy to do his will, an extension of himself rather than a true elemental, but this was the shape in which he found it easiest to manifest his powers.
Such was the velocity with which the man was flung that Teclis was too slow. By the time he had commanded the sylph to act, he had already passed through the archway and vanished into the Paths of the Old Ones.
The dwarf seemed barely to have noticed. A quick glance was all he took. His one good eye narrowed when he saw Teclis, though, and then he returned to carving the massive Chaos creature. Now the daemon was in full retreat, slithering away into the darkness, its maggot children inching along after it. Teclis knew he must end this farce soon if he was to take advantage of the opportunity with which he had been presented. He sent another wave of magical power after the creature, incinerating the maggots and charring its flesh. The creature screamed as it died.
The dwarf spat on its smouldering remains and then turned to face the wizard.
‘Now, elf, I will deal with you.’
Felix felt a sudden surge of heat around him, and then the buzzing stopped. He opened his eyes and saw a charred halo of dust falling away from him. The grip of the tentacle tightened painfully around his ribs, cutting off his breath. He felt as if his bones were about to break. Desperately he gripped his sword and tried to bring it to bear on the monstrous limb, but the angle was wrong.
He heard Gotrek’s war cry ring out and axe bite home. A golden glow filled the air, and a swirling breeze dissipated the cloying stink of the beast. What was going on here, he wondered, as the glow intensified and lines of fire pierced the body of the daemon? Magic was at work – that was quite obvious. Had Max followed them?
Before he had time to consider things further, the creature’s tentacles uncurled and he found himself hurtling through the air. Involuntarily, he closed his eyes. He knew that if he hit the ground or a wall from this height at this speed, at very best bones would be broken, at worst he would die a pulped gelatinous mass like the maggots. He braced himself for the impact that he knew could only be seconds in coming.
Instead, he felt himself engulfed in coolness. He opened his eyes, and saw that he was on the other side of the glowing barrier, caught amid swirling colours. He had but a few seconds to take this in, and then he felt himself gripped by acceleration. It was as if his velocity, already great, had increased by several orders of magnitude.
Desperately he looked around but what he saw was meaningless. He seemed to be hurtling though a breathable atmosphere along an infinite corridor whose walls changed colour every heartbeat. Strange glittering spheres moved through it as well, pulsing and changing, flowing into each other like droplets of quicksilver. Inside each seemed to be a shimmering vision. He had no idea where he was or where he was going. The sense of disorientation he had felt in the darkness of the corridors returned, increased tenfold.
Worse yet, he was alone and caught in some vast sorcerous trap from which he knew he would never escape.
Teclis looked at the dwarf and considered the possibility of his own death. The more he looked at that axe the more his respect for its power increased. That it was an ancient rune weapon of the highest order, he had no doubt. The aura of antiquity surrounding it was clear. The runes were dazzling bright, more potent than any he had ever seen, and in his time, he had seen many.
Its wielder was no less frightening. He appeared to be a normal dwarf, albeit one of great size and physical power, but his aura told Teclis’s keen and sensitive mage sight a different story. The dwarf had been changed in many ways. Magic permeated his being. Magic that flowed from the axe and changed him utterly
. It was changing him still. He was far tougher and stronger than any dwarf had a right to be, and far more immune to the effects of magic as well. Fascination warred with fear. Here was a being in the process of transformation into something else, under the influence of a magic older than elven civilisation. Teclis would have given a king’s ransom to be able to study this weapon, but at the moment he had other worries.
‘I have no quarrel with you, dwarf,’ he said.
‘I can change that,’ said the dwarf. He moved closer, the menacing axe held high.
Teclis considered his options. He had used much of the power stored in the staff, and the magical energies he could draw on here within the paths would all be tainted by Chaos, and thus most likely resisted by the axe. He would not have bet gold that under these circumstances he could overcome the protective runes on that blade. In Ulthuan things might have been different, but this was not Ulthuan.
Nor did drawing his sword and facing the dwarf seem like an acceptable option. He was a fair swordsman, but one look at this dwarf told him that even a magical blade in the hands of a competent fighter would not be nearly enough for victory.
‘I saved your life and that of your companion,’ he said, backing towards the archway. Under the circumstances, discretion seemed the better part of valour. Still, he was loath to simply run. He had the pride of all the line of Aenarion, and more, he felt that this dwarf was important to him somehow, that this meeting was not simply chance.
‘I do not take kindly to that suggestion,’ said the dwarf in a voice like stone grating on stone.
Of course not, thought Teclis, looking at the strange hairstyle and the tattoos, and the dwarf’s generally morose demeanour – you are a Slayer, sworn to seek death in battle. I have done you no favours then. He kept backing away as the Slayer advanced, kept considering his options, looking for the key that would give him an advantage here. There was only one thing that sprang immediately to mind.
‘If you wish to save your companion, you must work with me now,’ said Teclis.
Felix began to see things as he tumbled headlong into the spheres. At first they seemed almost formless, but then he began to recognise pictures, fleeting glimpses of himself and others. Some of them were quite obviously memories. Others he did not recall. They might have been the dreams of another, save that he recognised those within them.
He saw himself as a youth in his father’s house, quarrelling with the old man. He saw himself as a young radical student at the University of Altdorf, drinking and posturing and writing verses of no great worth in taverns of no great respectability. He saw the duel he fought with Wolfgang Krassner and the corpse at his feet, bloody foam still oozing from its lips. He saw the wild night when he had met Gotrek in the Axe and Hammer, and swore an oath to accompany him and record his doom. He saw their fatal encounter with the Emperor’s cavalry during the window tax riots.
More images filled his eyes as his senses became somehow more real and more dream-like. What was going on here? What was this medium through which he moved? It seemed to respond to thought and memory with magical speed. He could not comprehend it. He was not a sorcerer and had no wish to be. He had read in some books of natural philosophy that the pure stuff of Chaos was supposed to be like this. He had heard of similar strange things happening during the first Siege of Praag before Magnus the Pious had intervened and saved the city. Stone had flowed like water, hideous monsters had been made flesh, nightmares had walked the street.
More scenes flickered around him. He saw an ancient castle in Sylvania where he and Gotrek confronted a vampire and rescued a girl. He recognised the vampire from a picture he had once seen in Drakenhof Castle. It was Mannfred von Carstein.
He saw a great battle in which the armies of the Empire confronted a horde of orcs, and Snorri Nosebiter fell in battle to be mourned by a regiment of Slayers. He saw a huge burning mountain on top of which Gotrek fought with a bat-winged daemon that looked like a combination of man and elf, only much larger. These things had never happened, he knew. Perhaps they were delusions given form by his feverish brain, prophesies of the future, glimpses of worlds that might have been if he had walked a different path?
He did not know, and he did not care. Already he felt his senses were about to be overwhelmed, that if this kept up his mind would collapse under the sheer rush of information, and he would be reduced to a mad gibbering thing. Then he saw that some of the other objects were coming closer and taking new forms. He sensed the presences around him, closing in, coming closer through the aether like sharks surrounding a thrashing swimmer. A tendril of thought, silky and malevolent and evil, reached out and infiltrated his brain.
We will feed soon, it said. Your soul is ours.
The dwarf stopped his advance.
‘Is this some elvish treachery?’ he said. Teclis shook his head.
‘Your friend has gone through the Portal of the Old Ones. He has no protective charms or amulets of spells. He has no idea of how to shield himself. He has no runes such as are to found on your formidable axe. If he is not found soon, he will die or be devoured by those who dwell beyond.’
The dwarf raised his axe once more, and advanced, a look of pure determination on his face. Teclis feared that he was going to have to fight. Instead the dwarf strode towards the gateway. ‘I will find him. I do not need your help, elf.’
‘It is not so simple. You are no sorcerer. You could not find him within the ways. Nor could you find your own way out without the correct key. You will be lost in there forever or until you meet something that not even your axe can slay.’
‘But you will help me?’ said the dwarf. There was harsh irony in his voice. ‘Why do I feel there is a catch?’
‘Because in return, you will help me to discharge my quest. A simple bargain. Something a dwarf should understand.’
The dwarf glared at him. ‘Do not worry. I will require nothing that would compromise your dwarfish pride or your peculiar notions of honour.’
‘What would an elf know of honour?’
Teclis smiled. ‘Then after we have saved your friend I will leave it to you to decide whether what I ask of you is honourable.’
The dwarf cocked his head. He suspected a trap. So might I look, thought the wizard, if I were bargaining with a daemon. He smiled again, having just been given some insight into what was going on in the dwarf’s head.
‘Very well,’ said the dwarf. ‘But if this is a trick or you betray me, then you will most assuredly die, if I have to climb out of the pit of hell to kill you.’
The smile vanished from Teclis’s lips. The dwarf sounded like he would do exactly what he said. He had the look of someone who could do it, too.
‘If we are to travel together we should know each other’s names. I am Teclis, of the line of Aenarion,’ he said, giving a courtly bow as to one of uncertain status.
‘I am Gotrek, son of Gurni,’ said the dwarf. He did not bow.
‘And if my rememberer is dead,’ he said, ‘you will soon join him.’
We’ll see, thought Teclis, knowing that once they were within the Paths of the Old Ones, the balance of power would tip back into his favour.
Felix wondered if he were dead and passed within Morr’s iron-gated halls. That seemed the one likely possibility, although if this was the afterlife it was a peculiarly hellish one.
Perhaps that was what had happened. Perhaps he had been condemned to one of the purgatories where evildoers were punished for their sins. He had not considered himself a particularly evil man in life, but perhaps the gods judged mortals by different standards.
He stood now in a strange dark place. Fire pits were everywhere. Suffering mortals were chained to walls and daemonic entities tortured them. The weight of his own chains was enormous, and their heat was uncomfortable against his limbs.
Worse yet, something large, horned and bat-winged was coming closer. It reminded him of daemons he had seen before. It had the same malicious eyes, and the same air of in
human cruelty. It paused before him and looked up at where he hung.
‘You are ours now,’ it said. ‘We will feast on your flesh and upon your soul. For us it will be a moment of mild diversion. For you, an eternity of pain.’
‘Wait,’ said Teclis. ‘I must cast the spells of warding and tracking before we pass through this archway.’
The dwarf spat on the ground, and ran his thumb over the edge of the axe. A bead of bright blood appeared there. It was a disconcerting sight. Teclis reactivated the charms of protection woven into his amulets and extended their influence to an area about three strides from his body. The axe would most likely protect its wielder from the worst influences of Chaos within the paths, but he was taking no chances.
He next considered locating the man. Such divination was not easy at the best of times and he had barely caught a glimpse of the human. Still, the sword had a very distinctive magical pattern, and Teclis had the recall of an elvish sorcerer. In his youth he had performed thousands of exercises designed to increase the capacity of his memory. The application of such skills was invaluable to a sorcerer in countless ways, as he was just about to prove.
He visualised the man, freezing the instant in which he had been flung clear of the daemon-thing. He saw again the straw-blond hair, the scared blue eyes, the lined and tanned face with its horrified expression. He pictured the tall form wrapped in the ragged red cloak. He pictured the man’s aura and the aura of the blade. The image of a great dragon sprang to his mind, and he realised as he contemplated the memory that a dragon’s head had been the pattern on the hilt of the blade. Once he was certain he had the image as perfect as he was going to get it, he cast the spell of divination and location, sending tendrils of force through the gateway, relying on the principle of sympathetic magic to guide them to their source. For a moment, he feared he would find nothing, that the link was too tenuous, that even his skills were not equal to the task, then he felt something far off and receding.
